


five people marilyn delpy never expected to see at her wedding

by antistar_e (kaikamahine)



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Backstory, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/pseuds/antistar_e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for rosepetalfall, who cheerleaded this idea since the very first time I mentioned writing myself some self-indulgent Mark/Marilyn thing on a long airplane flight.</p><p>You can read this here or <a href="http://antistar-e.livejournal.com/573651.html?format=light">@ LJ</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	five people marilyn delpy never expected to see at her wedding

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rosepetalfall, who cheerleaded this idea since the very first time I mentioned writing myself some self-indulgent Mark/Marilyn thing on a long airplane flight.
> 
> You can read this here or [@ LJ](http://antistar-e.livejournal.com/573651.html?format=light).

-

1| **Christy Lee**

 

When Marilyn is sixteen, young and not really used to thinking about other people yet and determined to become a soccer superstar and maybe do perfume commercials with David Beckham, her mother calls her into her bedroom one dark, overcast afternoon and croakily asks her if she minds getting her old wedding gown out of the closet.

Distracted by the abstract future she's been conjuring for herself, vague dreamy images of screaming crowds in the stands and herself in a number 11 jersey, it takes Marilyn three tries to find the right musty-smelling box, tucked back behind shoeboxes full of old nylons and bags with Christmas gifts she isn't supposed to know about. Her mother had gotten married at the height of the 70s, and the dress matches the time -- Marilyn fetches it out, wrinkling her nose at the sight of puffed sleeves that are probably bigger than her head.

"I always wanted ..." her mother starts in a tremulous whisper, when she drags it over to the bed. "Do you want to try it on?"

Marilyn eyes the sleeves dubiously, but she's her mother's eldest daughter, and not used to telling her no. "Do you think I'll fit?" she asks. "I don't have your hips."

"You'll fit," her mother answers, her voice almost confident.

So Marilyn lays the dress out on the foot of the bed and shucks out of her shirt. Keeping her shorts on, she shimmies into the heavily-embroidered polyester, pulling uncomfortably on the skirt as it scratches at her bare legs. The fabric doesn't fall quite right past her hips -- it's been designed for several tulle pettiskirts to fit underneath, which they don't have. Making a face, she trails her fingers up the bodice; the brilliant menagerie of thread that stretches from the waistline to the sweatheart curve of the neckline has only faded a little bit with time. Her mother did the embroidery by hand; she said it was her way of adding a flair of her own culture to the bizarre white-dress western wedding, and Marilyn's heard the story often enough but has never actually asked to see the gown itself. She feels like she's wearing artwork.

Finally, she drops her hands and lifts her gaze. Her mother just looks at her, her eyes as big as beetles in her tiny skull and glittering bright in the bedside gloom. 

She murmurs, "You look exactly like me," and then she starts crying; a defeated tremble going through her shoulders.

Forgetting the laughable enormity of her sleeves, Marilyn clambers up onto the bed, dislodging the nest of blankets in order to wrap her arms around her mother, who shudders into her, the bony ridge of her back going hunched and bird-like.

"W-would you maybe think about wearing it at your w-wedding?" her mother manages, her voice coming out timid, like she thinks she's asking for too much: Marilyn had certainly made no attempt to hide what she thought of those sleeves. She pulls back some, lifting her fingers and running it along the embroidery, right above Marilyn's breast; three canary-yellow birds, stretched out in mid-flight. "I was ... I was so happy when I made this," she whispers, watery. "I would love for some of my happiness to go with you into your own marriage. Would ... would that be okay?"

Marilyn is sixteen, and her thoughts about marriage are nebulous, far-off, like the knowledge that the earth is round and the atom is very, very tiny: she knows about it, but she can't quite wrap her head around the _meaning_ of it.

So it's not a hard promise to make. She nods, says "I can definitely do that," and hugs her mother again.

When Marilyn is twenty-eight, she goes into the back of her closet and pulls down an old, yellowed box from the top shelf. Rings of water damage mark the bottom, but it still smells the same, like someone packaged up the 70s and delivered it in a polyester bundle. She pulls the dress out.

The sleeves are just as atrocious as she remembers, but she ignores those; the thread on the bodice has become a little frayed in places, but the scene is still easy identifiable, cut in broad stretches. Three yellow birds escaping a dark forest -- one bird for her mother, her godmother, and her uncle. Smiling, she goes into the bathroom and slips the gown on over her head, letting the artwork settle against her skin.

Then she tries to zip herself up.

And it won't go.

A dozen years have passed since she made that promise to her mother, and this is something she hadn't envisioned, not even once: that the dress would no longer _fit._

She tries, and tries, and tries, until the fabric creaks ominously and her arms shake with the effort of reaching behind her, and she lets it go, all the air going out of her at once. Leaving the zip to gape open like it's her skin that's been flayed apart, she sits on the edge of the tub and pinches the bridge of her nose, hard. It doesn't stop the frustrated tears from leaking down her cheeks, but the pinching is a habit she picked up from her fiance that she hasn't been able to shake.

He's on her mind now, so she grabs her phone and calls him, wanting the comfort. His voice immediately goes alert and protective when it becomes obvious that she's in tears.

"There's no way to fix it?" he asks, after she explains. "Let it out? It can't be that hard, you're not fat. You just stopped being your mother."

She laughs at that in a shaky exhale. "The embroidery," she goes, mournful, and he sucks in a breath, suddenly understanding.

"Oh," he goes.

"Yeah," she says, and they let the silence settle after that.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asks finally, with a bite of frustration in his voice. She purses her lips, even though she knows it's not aimed at her; it's the frustration of anyone who's ever had to listen to a girl cry and be unable to do anything to help, especially if the solution was going to be more complicated than clubbing someone else over the head and grunting pointedly.

"No, but thank you," she manages.

She shimmies out of the dress. Discarding the box, she hangs it up on the bathroom door, running her fingers down the heavy folds of the skirt, which smell as musty as moths. Her chances of finding anything like this in a bridal shop is nonexistent, because this blend of East and West is unique to her mother (and unique to that very, very short period of time when those sleeves were considered fashionable and not just a potential way to smuggle alien offspring into the country.)

Reluctantly, she adds, _shop for a wedding dress,_ to her planner, which proceeds to tell her, quite helpfully, that's there's a bridal salon right off the Oregon Expressway, but if she wants the traditional gold or red, there's a specialty store in Atherton she could check out. Marilyn, who doesn't feel white enough to check out the bridal salon but not Thai enough to merit a trip to the speciality store, closes out of both.

Then, with a flick of her thumb, she calls Christy.

Christy picks up on the third ring. "Darling!" she goes, exaggerated and syrupy. She shouts to be heard over loud background noise; she must be near a construction set. "Have you called to tell me you've seen the error of your ways and you're going to _beg_ me to be your maid of honor?"

"No," says Marilyn.

"Boo, you whore," says Christy cheerfully. "What can I do for you?"

"You could tell me you're going to come to my wedding, for one."

"Pfft. Why would I want to if I'm not going to be the maid of honor?" Marilyn opens her mouth to explain this, rationally (for the third time,) but Christy talks over her. "Yeah, yeah, you keep telling me your sister has priority and you've planned it this way since you were little girls, whatever, I'm not actually mad. You know I can't come. I can't leave the state."

"The wedding is being held in-state, Christy," says Marilyn patiently. "Right here in town."

"I know that," Christy replies. "I just ... I just don't want to risk it, you know? Like, wouldn't it suck if the SFPD busted down the doors in the middle of your ceremony just because I accidentally set foot outside county lines or whatever."

"I don't know, it might be entertaining. Come on, Christina, how many other convicted felons get to say the bride _begged_ them to attend their high-profile wedding?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Christy says, lofty. Then something bangs, loudly, on the other end, and she muffles the mouthpiece in order to yell obscenities in somebody's general direction. Whoever it is yells back, and then a chainsaw starts up, drowning them both out.

Marilyn met Christy during one of her earliest legal cases; ironically, also the same case where she met her fiance. Tracking her down hadn't been easy, but they badly needed her character testimony -- it would look suspicious if they left such a key component of the case out -- and Sy told her that she, Marilyn, would probably have a better chance of talking to her. She eventually found her in a low-security prison in San Francisco, doing two years for arson of company property.

Christy's initial flat refusal to testify turned into an actual conversation, which turned into them finding out that they are both second-generation immigrants and the daughters of manicurists, and that they both really, really hate the mayor of San Francisco for his deliberately blase dismissal of the Asian-American concentration camps that had been set up in California during WWII, which had absolutely nothing to do with Marilyn's case, but it didn't matter, because nothing brings two people together faster than a mutual dislike of a third person.

"For the best, I suppose," Sy had told her, when she came back saying Christina Lee refused to give her deposition. "If she's the best we got when it comes to character defamation, the plaintiff's going to tear us to shreds," which made Marilyn frown, because Christy was a Harvard graduate (which couldn't be said for their damn _client,)_ and a very cuttingly intelligent woman, and none of that was _invalidated_ simply because she was wearing orange in a San Francisco jail.

 _Likability,_ though.

Marilyn promised to call again, and she had, and here they are.

"Sorry," says Christy abruptly, voice crackling loud in her ear. "We never get around to talking about why you called."

"It can wait," Marilyn offers. "If you're busy --"

"It's nothing, just people who probably never passed Calc III trying to pretend they know a thing about set design and construction. Honestly, calculus isn't even the hard shit, but I digress. You're far more important than the idiots they let bumble around my job."

Interestingly enough, it's Christy's track record with pyrotechnics that got her the job she has. The conditions of her parole means she can't leave the state of California, but she still gets to use her Harvard degree in mathematics to build impressive shit for Mythbusters -- shit that she then gleefully gets to make explode. Marilyn's seen almost every episode she's been in, and if maybe they try too hard to play up the Harvard, the math degree, and Christy's Asianness for laughs, the delight on her face when she gets to set something on fire more than makes up for it.

So she explains about her mother and the wedding dress, and the embroidery problem.

To her surprise, Christy snorts, dismissive. "Oh, please, that's nothing. Leave it to me -- I got aunties who can fix that for you in the time it takes to hard-boil an egg."

"... actual aunties?" Marilyn asks, skeptical.

"Well, girls that my mother went to school with. And my manicurists. So, yeah, basically my extended family."

"I don't --"

" _Marilyn._ Pack up your sad face and your mother's dress and come up to the city. I can't come to your wedding, so the least I can do is make sure you keep your promise to your mom. I _got_ this."

 

-

The morning of Marilyn's wedding dawns cuttingly cold, because weather in the Bay Area includes fog nine months out of the year and wildfire warnings the other three, and she sticks her foot out from under her blankets to test the temperature, shivers and decides _no,_ drawing her comforter up to tuck it under her chin. She doesn't _need_ to be up for another forty-five minutes, she tells herself, and then abruptly becomes aware that her godmother is leaning over her.

" _Ah!"_ she yelps, jolting back. And, "who let you in?"

"Abby," her godmother replies, sounding amused. "She's already up and getting ready."

"Of course she is," mutters Marilyn, and throws the covers off. She did a two-year fast track program Foothill College to get her degree and graduated from law school in the 98th percentile just a few years after that, and her little sister _still_ makes her look like an underachiever.

" _Ayii,"_ her godmother hisses out between her teeth, bending down in order to cup Marilyn's face between her palms. Marilyn's mother used to make the exact same exasperated noise. "You look more and more like your father every time I see you. What even _are_ these?" she scrubs at Marilyn's freckles with her thumbs.

"They're permanent," says Marilyn dryly.

Her godmother snorts, peering at her closely. "Are you sure it's not too late to anything about that nose? It's so ..." she makes a broad, faintly insulting gesture that she always uses when she means _white._

Affection bubbles up in Marilyn's rib cage. "It's good to see you, Auntie, I'm glad you could make it," she says, and her godmother huffs out a _bah,_ but looks pleased. She and Marilyn's mother and uncle came into the country together, indistinguishable from any other refugees who made up the influx of immigrants right before the Vietnam War broke out. When Marilyn's mother died heartbreakingly soon after her father, her godmother and uncle became her entire support network. Since, Marilyn's been unable to look at them without feeling a keen sense of _luck._

"Come on," her godmother says now, gentler. "We have a surprise for you."

The "surprise" grabs her around the neck as soon as she steps out of her bedroom, squealing loudly and smelling like chamomile perfume and that burnt hair scent that comes from leaving one's straightener on too-high a setting. "Bride-to-be!" sounds off right in her ear.

"Christy?" goes Marilyn, baffled. She flings her arms around Christy's neck and squeezes her, tight, her voice going high and shrill with her surprise, "I thought you said --"

"I lied!" says Christy gleefully. "Oh, come on, like I was going to let you get married without your best friend there? Think again! Now," she releases Marilyn, grabbing her around the arms and steering her into the front room. "Come look and see what we've brought you."

Abby and Tommy are both waiting for her in front of the television, wearing identical gleeful smiles; Abby's already in her bridesmaid dress, bunny slippers on her feet and her hair in curlers, and her brother looks like he was dragged unapologetically out of bed same as Marilyn was. And between them --

"The dress!" Marilyn gasps, soft.

The monstrous sleeves are gone, completely gone, leaving the sweetheart neckline bare, and the front of the skirt has been rucked up, pinned in place by her hip and revealing the folds of the pettiskirts underneath, so that the profile isn't as intimidatingly big. It leaves nothing to distract from the embroidered bodice and the metaphorical story told there, three little thread-yellow birds escaping into the sky.

"How --" she starts, and without needing to be asked, her siblings flip the dress over. She walks over, touching her fingertips to the zipper, which has been peeled away from the bodice and replaced with a stretchier fabric, something like spandex. It looks like it will slide right over the broader, more hourglass portions of her figure.

"No part of your mother's embroidery was harmed in the re-making of this dress," Christy informs her, solemnly. Her godmother steps around her to help Abby and Tommy get the dress off the hanger.

Christy comes up beside Marilyn, who wraps an arm around her waist and leans into her, too full with emotion to actually say a single thing.

 

 

2| **Silas West**

 

In the back of the car on her way to the venue, Marilyn spreads her palms down on her lap, studying her nails.

She got simple French tips, the white blending easily into the white of the skirt of her gown, a pattern like the wings of a dove painted onto the broad flat of her thumbnails. Her cuticles are still stinging from the treatment, and it fills Marilyn with a strange, almost painful sense of nostalgia. She hasn't had a manicure since the last time her mother did it, when she was sixteen and thinking she wanted Owen Verchonie from swim team to ask her to prom.

Marilyn's mother worked every day of the week in a hot, cramped nail salon off the back side of Sears, the one in the shopping complex on the corner of El Camino and San Antonio Boulevard. After school, Marilyn, her sister, and her brother all crowded into the tiny backroom where they did the bikini waxes and took turns playing Mario on their handheld Gameboy until their father got off work and came to pick them up.

Her mother always smelled like acetone, her fingerprints rubbed right off and her eyes permanently folded into a squint, and when she met Marilyn's father, she said that was it, she was done, there was nothing more she was looking for. Marilyn's father was a burly redheaded draft dodger who spent the Vietnam War courting the pretty manicurist out of a eucalyptus tree on the Stanford campus, and they were married on a Sunday under a clear, blue, breezy sky; Marilyn's mother wore a dress that nodded to the Western world she was marrying into, and a tribute to the culture that bore her.

Marilyn always envied them their certainty, their love. It was the only thing about their lives that had ever been easy, she imagines.

She's their oldest daughter; she has her father's nose, his freckles, and her mother's smile. Abby came after her -- she looks more Thai than the rest of them put together, a miniature carbon copy of their mother, and hasn't gotten the same opportunities Marilyn did despite being just as smart. They stopped after Tommy, because their father wanted a son to play football with. What he got was Marilyn, who loved soccer with all her burning child heart.

Both their parents got desperately ill when Marilyn was sixteen, anemic and pale and throwing up blood; lead poisoning, the doctors tell her later, from drinking straight from the run-off stream on Stanford while her dad was camping there during the war.

They die within a year of each other, and at eighteen, Marilyn becomes guardian to her two younger siblings. She shelves her dreams of perfume commercials with David Beckham and looks into law schools.

Until today, she hasn't set foot in a nail salon.

Outside the doors, Abby and Christy both kiss her on the cheek. "Last moment of being a bachelorette," her sister whispers excitedly. "Next time I talk to you, you'll be a married woman!"

Christy straightens Marilyn's headband just for the excuse to do something with her hands and wishes her luck. They disappear into the hall, leaving Marilyn alone.

Which is when somebody behind her says her name.

She jumps, because she hadn't heard anyone approach. She turns around, and for a second, she doesn't recognize the man standing there.

"Sy!" she goes, blinking and shifting her weight back in her strappy heels, gown rustling against the lobby's marble floors. "Hi!"

He smiles, wry.

Her hackles rise at the sight of it, making her instantly uncomfortable -- she dropped out of his law firm in a pretty spectacular fashion, chasing after a better prospect that led her to the firm she's with now. She doesn't regret it, of course, because she's successful and she did that on her own, but it does make seeing him awkward.

Uneasily, she glances over her shoulder, hunting for her bridesmaids or her uncle or her godmother. Anyone, really, who might provide a distraction.

As if sensing this, Sy holds up his hands, placating. "I just came to wish the bride some felicitations," he goes, tone purposefully mild.

"Oh," says Marilyn. "Thank you? That's very kind of you. Um, the ceremony is just for friends and family, but you're more than welcome to come to the reception afterwards, it's --"

But Sy just shakes his head. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you," he says. "I just wanted to catch you before you went down the aisle. I haven't seen you in a long time."

"Yes," Marilyn agrees, bemused, because is this really the time for a catch-up chat? "I hope business is well. How are your daughters?"

Sy answers her questions without vitriol, or much interest, but he keeps on looking at her like he's trying to puzzle something together, and it's got Marilyn kind of unnerved.

" _Why_ him, though?" he blurts out, finally, and Marilyn realizes this is the crux of the conversation: this is what he really came here to ask. "We were both there. We know the nit and the gritty details of how shitty he treats his partners. How do you think he's going to treat his wife?"

She tilts her head, turning the question over in her mind. She bites the inside of her lip thoughtfully.

_Likability._

"I suppose I don't," she says finally. "Know for certain that he's going to treat me any better than them, I mean. But neither am I going to treat him like a ticking time bomb, always waiting for him to disappoint me, either." She and her fiance aren't like her parents, and Marilyn's stopped waiting for it to feel as fairytale as she thought they had been. She doesn't have that same ease, but she does think she has the _certainty._ She's already seen her husband-to-be at his worst, and she's seen him at his best, and they're both still here.

Besides, if Sy is here to try and convince her _not_ to get married, he probably should have done it sooner.

"It's going to be nothing but hard work, you know that, right?" says Sy, but gently. Now he sounds, more than anything, like the senior lawyer who let her sit in on the deposition phase. "You're going to have to try, and try, and keep trying."

And Marilyn nods, because that'll be the easiest part. That's what they've been, since the very beginning: a _try._

The only thing you can do is keep trying, because sometimes, things _work._

 

 

3| **her own damn groom**

 

A long time ago, right after they officially set a date ("we need to pick a day of the year we'll have no trouble remembering as an anniversary and each have a reasonable chance of being free for," he told her matter-of-factly, and scowled at her highbrow expression, "no, really, this is something normal people should think about when they're planning on entering a state of wedded bliss,") she'd jokingly put in a reminder on her phone under _oops I accidentally marriage._

The alarm goes off right as her uncle joins her outside the doors. They're almost ready for her to walk down the aisle; she can hear the rustling on the other side, people settling into place and the hush descending.

She snorts and rolls her eyes, because she completely forgot about it, and just as she turns to show her uncle, it lights up for real, ringing in her hand with an incoming call.

She looks at the name on the screen for a beat, then sighs and lifts it to her ear, answering in trepidation, "What happened?"

"You ... ah, you ah ... wouldn't happen to be missing anyone, would you?" Dustin hedges, sounding very, very nervous.

" _Dustin,"_ she grits out.

"Sorry!" he blurts out preemptively. "Oh god I'm so sorry! I just _really_ can't shake the feeling you needed your man for something today."

Marilyn is _not_ going to find a way to set them on fire. She's not. Even though she has a reasonable chance of getting away with it, especially if she enlists the help of Christy and all the quirky people on Mythbusters. They can totally make it look like an accident. She rallies herself, pulling up contingency plans in her head. "Where are you?"

"He ... might be a little late," Dustin answers, evasive.

"My surprise overwhelms me," Marilyn says flatly. On the other side of the door, the wedding guests all laugh at something; a quiet rumble of noise. "Dustin ... I kind of want to marry this man, okay. Can you please bring him to me?"

"Ummm," says Dustin one last time, and she's just about to crack when he says, very loudly and very gleefully, "Nah, I'm just kidding! We're totally waiting for you at the end of the aisle, any time you feel like joining us."

And hangs up.

The guests all laugh again, louder this time.

" _Why_ did I think this was a good idea?" she asks her uncle, who smiles at her with gap teeth and takes her hand in his.

He lifts it to his mouth, kissing her fingertips like he did when she was a child, chasing him around the curving snake statue in front of the Stanford Art Museum only to fall and skin herself on the rough stones, and he says, "You'll see."

Then he tucks her arm in his as the doors open. Dozens of little oval faces turn to watch her uncle walk her down the aisle, and she knows they're there, smiling and warm and enjoying the practical joke they just played on her, but each individual one doesn't really register, because there at the end, Mark Zuckerberg's eyes flare open wide at the sight of her.

 _The dress!_ he mouths.

 _I know!_ she mouths back, and they beam at each other, wide and silly and absolutely delighted at their own luck.

Standing at his right-hand side, Dustin grins at her and salutes her with his cell phone, and next to him, Tommy rolls his eyes, like, _can you believe these two? I look well-behaved compared to them._

Marilyn had put off introducing Abby and Tommy to Mark for the longest time, the same way everybody is most reluctant to show their greatest accomplishments, the things they are most proud of, to the people whose opinions matter the most, because nobody else is in a better position to strip that feeling away from you. It's the same way Mark had fidgeted uncomfortably the first time he showed her Facebook at the height of its productivity, folding and unfolding a paperclip and waiting for her to say something.

The first time she had Mark over for dinner, the four of them eating standing up at the kitchen counter because Abby had stacked the bar stools up in her bedroom for a photography project, she watched him interact with them, hawk-like and careful -- Mark and Tommy had gone from a tentative _I don't think your sister wants you on your phone at the table_ to a flat _you do know I can program your next fifty status updates to proudly announce how you just wet the bed, right? I gave you Facebook and I can take it away._

The look on Tommy's face had been priceless.

Maybe, in hindsight, that was the moment Marilyn knew that if Mark Zuckerberg asked her to marry him, she would say yes.

The first time he asked her out (like, on a date) could _technically_ have been that day in the deposition room, with all the glass windows overlooking the foggy Junipero Serra hills and the smudged line of the San Francisco Bay, when he awkwardly invited her for steaks right after she told him he was going to have to pay millions of dollars to make Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins to go away. It caught her off guard, then, and since the only thing she was thinking of was going home, taking off her heels, and finishing Five People You Meet in Heaven, she said no, thank you.

The second time came as less of a surprise, a couple weeks later, when the case was closed, sealed, and filed away. He watched her, a thoughtful expression making the corners of his mouth turn down and his eyes unreadable, but since she still couldn't shake the image of him, alone with his laptop at the table, the tips of his fingers going blue with the overzealous air conditioning, like the boy who elects to stay inside and read during recess simply because he knows no one else will join him on the field, she declined. Politely, but firmly.

The third time, she leveled him with an exasperated, _are you kidding me?_ kind of look before she could stop herself.

He lifted his chin defiantly, eyes shuttering and the grey color in them going dull. "I _am_ capable of taking a hint," he had told her, very pointedly. "Contrary to what you might think. As I've already humiliated myself by asking you, however, you should probably turn me down. One more time."

"Oh my god," Marilyn muttered, and did something she hadn't done since middle school -- she leaned over the arm of her chair and flicked him hard across the ear with her fingernail.

He startled, canting his body out of her reach and shooting her an incredulous, _did you really just do that?_ look -- and then he _really_ looked at her.

She folded her arms. "I appreciate the honesty," she told him, dry as bone. "But I don't think referring to it as 'humiliating yourself' is the right way to chase a girl." She planted a hand on the table, leaning in. "Mark, the first time you ask me out because you _genuinely_ want to spent time with me and _not_ because you think you still owe me because I said something nice to you one time when you really needed it ... that's when I'll probably say yes."

There was a beat where he just looked at her, his mouth as thin as a snake's. Then something cracked around the corners of his eyes, and he said in a much friendlier tone, "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" Marilyn had said, thrown.

"Manage to say exactly the right thing and _still_ sound like a trite fortune cookie."

She blinked, and then burst out laughing, slapping a hand to her mouth to cover it even when her shoulders starting shaking. She's a big sister and she specialized in reading people as part of her _job,_ she's _used_ to saying deep things in completely random contexts, like, _you're not an asshole, you're just trying so hard to be._ Looking bemused, Mark shifted his chair closer, propping his chin up on his fist, and asked her what she was working on.

He never did wind up asking her out on a date. They became friends instead, slowly and without either of them really noticing it was happening until it was already done. 

They hung out, practiced speeches together, took turns being each other's designated drivers and each other's plus-ones to corporate events, until it got to the point where Mark didn't bother asking anyone else to accompany him and Mark's assistant, Hoburn, just automatically RVSP'd Marilyn Delpy as Mark Zuckerberg's plus one, before Mark even asked her. A high percentage of her current clientele, she met at these events. It just worked well for everyone.

But at no point did they officially become boyfriend-girlfriend, so literally the only people who were not surprised when they became engaged were Mark and Marilyn themselves (and possibly Hoburn, because nobody survives long as Mark's PA by being obtuse.)

It happened during a soccer game back in May, with several shirtless programmers and some graduate students sprinting wildly back and forth across the Stanford oval lawn, in front of the main mall. Marilyn, whose dreams of being a soccer superstar weren't that far behind her, was the only one really playing seriously, and conversely Mark was the only one who posed a challenge to her, because he had been mildly competent at sports in high school (before they kicked him off the team for bad sportsmanship.) 

And, after a particularly brilliant score on her part, thank you very much, they wound up in the grass together, rolling helplessly, Marilyn still chanting in victory and Mark trying to shush her, it didn't count, Marilyn, come on, you cheated, that wasn't even --

Lying side-by-side and trying to get their breath back, while the rest of their teams set up a penalty shot in appeasement, Mark looked over at her and said, very quietly, "You know, we should probably just get married."

She thought about it, her head tilted back and the sunlight burning the insides of her closed eyes a bright, crisp orange. Then, like he'd asked her nothing more complicated than whether or not she wanted waffles for dinner, she said, "Yeah, okay. We can do that."

They made the announcements the very next day -- their families first, and then Hoburn, who looked at them over the rims of his glasses and went, "hm," and then went about arranging a wedding for them.

When Marilyn passes him on the way up the aisle, she mouths _thank you_ and Hoburn beams so wide his eyes fold into creases.

Before she even has time to be nervous, she's at the front, up by the chuppah, which is when Mark's patience with the whole thing breaks. 

Foregoing decorum completely, he comes down the steps to meet her. 

Her uncle lets go of her hand and makes a surprised noise as Mark lifts her veil, almost dislodging the band around her head, and catches her up to kiss her mouth, enthusiastically enough that it sends another ripple of laughter through their guests and earns him a wry, "you're being a bit preemptive there, Mr. Zuckerberg," from the rabbi, who straightens his tallit in a long-suffering way.

Marilyn hears all of this from a distance, registers it absently, too busy with cataloging everything on Mark's face when he pulls away from her.

He's got on a look she recognizes -- it's his _I have a good idea and I'm going to go through with it_ face. She makes a face in return, communicating quietly that the good idea had better be marrying her, and not something he left uncompleted at the office. His expression softens perceptibly, going fond. Suddenly and keenly, she remembers the first time he looked at her like he needed her; that tiny, slump-shouldered figure sitting alone at a deposition table, drumming his fingers on his laptop lid.

Her heart swells, too big for the bones and skin that hold it in, and she turns her head, kissing his cheek before she takes his hand and pulls him up the steps, so they can get married.

 

 

4| **Barack Obama**

 

You know what really wouldn't surprise Marilyn at this point? If more than half of the guests at her reception turned out to be private security for the other half.

It's a presence she's steadily growing used to, of course, although it wasn't one of the first things that popped into her head when she agreed to marry into the top richest 1% of the population. Becoming Mark Zuckerberg's wife may not be on par with the ritz and glam of doing perfume commercials with David Beckham, the way she'd dreamed for herself when she was in high school, but some of the people here make her feel like a superstar.

Steve Jobs twirls her around magnificently to the quick, jazzy number coming from the bass speakers, moving smartly out of the way of her skirts as they flare out. He's so tall that she has to catch herself against his chest when he reels her back in. The fabric of his black turtleneck is soft under her palms. Somewhere off to the side, she catches a glimpse of Mark dancing with his niece, who's spinning herself around on the end of his finger like a top, her curly hair flying and her cochlear implant clinging to the side of her head for dear life.

The song ends, and Steve steps back in order to sweep into a graceful, gentlemanly bow. She kind of wishes he had a top hat to complete the picture.

"Mazel tov!" he goes cheerily, straightening.

"You don't even know what that means!" she accuses him, and he just steps back in, taking her hand and kissing the back of her knuckles. He looks unrepentant, and then he looks startled, and then there's a polite touch to the ball of her shoulder.

"Excuse me, Steve," comes a voice that's instantly familiar. "May I steal the bride for the next dance?"

Steve Jobs releases her hand so fast she almost staggers from the loss, but then she turns around, and the President of the United States offers her a hand to her elbow, steadying.

"Mrs. Zuckerberg," he goes, smiling a very warm, engaging smile. "You look absolutely stunning."

"Oh holy shit," Marilyn manages, very faintly.

The president throws his head back, laughing, and there's a sparkle to his eyes, like he never gets tired of that reaction. The music starts up again, slower this time. "Mark didn't mention to you that I'd be coming, did he?"

"Umm," she says helplessly. She gingerly sets her hand on his shoulder, not entirely sure that the simple gesture isn't going to get her tackled by twelve burly Secret Service members. Gamely, he leads her by the waist, stepping them both into a smart waltz. "Um, no, no, he neglected to mention this particular part. I mean, he did tell me that he had to invite some business bigwigs as a matter of course, but I thought that meant, like ... Don Savage and Bill Gates, not like --" she realizes that she's babbling out of pure fright, and goes, "-- don't you have somewhere more important to be?"

"More important that congratulating you on a beautiful ceremony and well-wishing you many years of wedded bliss?" He pulls a face, feigning deep contemplation. "You know, Marilyn, nothing's coming to mind."

She chokes on her laugh, and winds up making an undignified noise, like the kind the sea lions on Pier 39 make when they think the tourists aren't paying them enough attention. Fortunately, the president smiles at her, like he thinks sea lion noises are hilarious. This cannot be happening to her.

Marilyn Zuckerberg (nee Delpy) is wearing her mother's wedding dress and dancing with Barack Obama, the president of the United States. 

_The president, Mom. He called your dress stunning!_

"Well," she says after a beat. They've cleared the floor, she notices; they're the only ones dancing. Even Mark's standing off to the side, his niece on his hip, her head on his shoulder. Christy's standing next to him, video camera in hand -- when she catches Marilyn's eye, she gives a shit-eating grin and a big thumbs-up. "Good to know my husband just considers you another bigwig and not, like, anybody he should have _warned_ me about."

"Don't worry about it," Obama answers easily. His hand in hers is broad, his grip warm, and where she'd seemed so dark when held by Steve Jobs, she matches here, almost paler. "I consider it a good sign. He honors you far more than he does me."

That does sound like Mark, to be honest; snubbing the president on principle of his position. "How so?" she frowns.

Thusfar, he's kept a polite, respectful distance between their bodies, but now he leans in so he can whisper, right up against her ear, "He never bothered dressing that nice to impress _me."_

She lifts her head and beams at him. He laughs back, rich and genuinely joyful.

 

-

The instant she catches a break, she finds one of the programs that's still lying out on the tables, stomps up to her husband where he's tugging fruitlessly at his necktie like he'd really like to get out of it, and whacks him hard across the shoulder with a very satisfying _thwap!_

"Marilyn!" Mark feigns hurt, gripping his shoulder and grimacing at her. She lifts the program to hit him again, and he quickly snatches it out of her hands.

"Is there any _other_ incredibly famous person you think you should maybe tell me about?" she demands of him, low and through her teeth. Her heart is still pounding inside her chest, like it's about to break through her bodice and her mother's embroidery.

"I asked JK Rowling if she'd like to come, because I know you like her books, but she had a scheduling conflict," Mark deadpans in reply.

Marilyn makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat.

"Hoburn," she says, catching sight of a familiar long beard in her peripheral vision, and Mark's assistant materializes, leading with his enormous happy-Buddha stomach like he always does. "Could you do me a favor and lead my husband out onto the dance floor before I am overcome with the sudden urge to dunk his head into the fruit punch?"

"It would be my honor, Mrs. Zuckerberg," says Hoburn, somehow managing to be entirely unironic about it, and before Mark really knows what's going on, Hoburn has him by the waist and is waltzing him across the room, his face set serenely.

Mark looks vaguely frightened.

 

 

5| **Eduardo Saverin**

 

Just when she thinks the buzz of excitement is never going to fade, and nothing's going to top the fact that Barack Obama just traveled all this way to waltz her around the dance floor, somebody stops Marilyn by the fondue as she picks at the last of the sad-looking strawberries.

He's sharply dressed, uncomfortable, his head ducked down shyly and turning a card over in his hands. "Presents for the bride and groom?" he asks, like he isn't sure of his welcome.

"Over there," Marilyn gestures on automatic, and reaches out to curl her fingers around his forearm before he can go. "Mr. Saverin," she says. "It is _so_ good to see you again."

She must not be hiding her surprise very well, because he spares her a wry smile, which pulls at her gut in a lowly familiar way. She's seen it before, whenever Mark looked up from his intense game of cat's cradle to snap something at Gretchen across that horrible deposition table, and Eduardo Saverin would smile without humor, like he hadn't expected anything less.

"I take it you weren't the one who invited me, then," he says sagely.

"No, that must have been Mark," she agrees. This is what she gets for letting Hoburn handle the invitations, she should have known better; she had no way of double-checking if Mark had pulled for some unexpected guests. "I had no idea you were going to be here. To be fair," she gestures over her shoulder. "That was the president of the United States here just now, so I honestly don't know what I'm expecting anymore."

"Right." he nods. "I don't think I can compete with that." He honestly does have a sweet smile, she thinks, once he relaxes. He and Mark have that in common. "That's almost as surprising as Mark marrying his lawyer, to be honest."

"Yes," says Marilyn, because she's heard most of the jokes by now. "Can you excuse me?"

He flushes guiltily. "Of course, I'll just --" he waves the card, and they step around each other.

She spots her husband's curly head and beelines right for him, cutting through the near-empty dance floor unapologetically. Most of the guests are Jewish: there isn't a lot of dancing going on in the first place.

The tightness at the corners of Mark's mouth tells her he's already spotted their very late arrival, but he smiles at her when she approaches him nonetheless, catching her hand and pulling her in for a kiss. He tastes a little like punch and a lot like exhaustion, and it has her thinking longingly of the bed and the pillows she had so unceremoniously been dragged out of this morning.

"I didn't think you had it in you," she says quietly, just between the two of them. "Inviting Eduardo, I mean."

"It's the big question of the night, isn't it?" Mark replies with that characteristic icy bite to his voice, but Marilyn isn't bothered -- it's not directed at her. "Whether or not the olive branch had been extended to my greatest nemesis."

"Yeah, but you don't actually care what it looks like," she points out, and he looks down, running the pad of his thumb over the glossy veneer of her nails. "That wasn't why you invited him."

"I know," he allows, and something goes soft in his eyes as, across the room, Dustin nearly upends his pitcher of punch in his attempt to throw his arms around Eduardo, his loud _bro, you missed my best man speech!_ audible even from all the way over here. Then his eyes harden again. "I did _not_ invite the Winklevosses."

"Not even to antagonize them?" Marilyn lifts her eyebrows, wry. "Color me impressed."

"Ha ha," Mark goes, completely droll.

She swings their hands together. "You should go talk to him," she offers, very quietly.

"I know," he goes, and this time, it sounds more like a confession.

She loses track of things for awhile after that, sending her sister home with Tommy because he has work early tomorrow, and saying good-bye as guests start to drop off, one-by-one, taking their security guards with them. She gets several more compliments on her dress, and Steve Jobs's mother lands a tipsy, sticky kiss near the corner of her mouth before Steve can rein her back, grimacing in embarrassment. Eventually, she looks around and realizes she has no idea where Mark is.

Excusing herself from her conversation, she walks across the hall, and when that fails to yield any results, she steps out onto the patio, and the cold immediately cuts through her. She wishes -- very, very briefly -- that her dress still had those sleeves.

On the other side of the lawn, standing under a dead street light, Mark's with Eduardo.

Marilyn pauses, and looks again. They're talking, the two of them, their hands moving animatedly between them. It's borderline intimate, like she's seeing them after the punch line has already been told; she catches them just as Eduardo leans into Mark's space, and their profiles, for a moment, outline the other's. When they smile, it strips years off their faces.

She toes out of her heels, picking them up by the straps and sauntering off across the grass towards them.

They've finished whatever it is they're saying by the time she reaches them, and in unison, they turn to face her.

"Most everybody is going home for the night," she tells them, keeping her voice very, very soft, as if there are shards of glass to be walked on here.

Eduardo embraces her then, like he can't not, pressing the side of his face into hers for a long beat, their cheeks hot against each other's. She keeps her arms wrapped around him, their weight rocking back and forth. She can feel his heartbeat and the thrum of his pulse underneath his clothes.

"Take care of him," he murmurs finally, like it costs him something small and essentially vital to say it. "Please."

Mutely, she nods, and he lets her go, stepping away.

As he picks his way across the grass, back towards the building, Marilyn shifts the straps of her shoes to the other hand and goes to Mark's side. She gives him a searching, questioning look, ducking her head down to catch his eye. He looks back at her, and the sad, near-nostalgic smile on his face transforms as she watches and holds his gaze. Until eventually, he's smiling at her, full and with the dimples showing.

Without prompting, he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close. He leans his weight into her, like he needs the strength or the support. Marilyn, who has both those things and more, holds him up.

The sodium street light above their heads finally flickers to life, catching Mark, Marilyn, and the retreating figure of Eduardo and bathing them in yellow. It casts their shadows far across the lawn, like the silhouettes of three little birds, escaping into the dark and the dawning light.

 

-  
fin


End file.
